Concerns take aoshu out of the equation

Mo Lin, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States, credits the aoshu, China's fiercely competitive math Olympiad, for giving him the opportunity to receive an overseas education.

Mo, a 28-year-old Beijinger, did aoshu training since he was in primary school. He won several awards in high school and was admitted to Tsinghua University without having to sit the national college entrance exam, or gaokao.

"I learned advanced mathematics in high school, I was in an aoshu interest group. At first there were many students attending the course every weekend, but few managed to continue through as the course content became more and more difficult," Mo said.